The Roman Theater, located in the urban area of Santiponce, will host the 27th edition of the European Youth Greco-Latin Theater Festival on March 19 and 20, bringing together over 3,000 high school students and nearly two hundred teachers from Andalusia and other regions. The initiative, promoted by the Ministry of Culture and Sports with the artistic direction of the cultural association ‘Svmma Cavea Itálica’, will offer five performances in morning and afternoon sessions.
This coliseum, built in the early 1st century, will feature tragic and comedic works by classic Greco-Latin authors representing the roots of Western culture. As a novelty this year, a youth company from Portugal is joining. It is the Thiasos Group from the University of Coimbra, which will perform ‘The Banquet’, by Plato, in Portuguese with Spanish subtitles. This will be the only play not performed on the stage of the Roman Theater, as it will be moved to the Casa de la Cultura in the town for translation purposes.
Audience of a performance at the Roman Theater of Itálica, in the urban area of Santiponce.
The remaining performances will take place during the two days of the festival in morning and afternoon sessions, at 11:30 a.m. and 5 p.m.: ‘Trojan Women’, by Euripides, and ‘Fortune Teller’, by Plautus, performed by the Balbo Theater Group from El Puerto de Santa María (Cádiz), and ‘Miles Gloriosus’, by Plautus, staged by the ‘Summa Cavea’ Group from IES Fuente Nueva in Morón de la Frontera (Seville) and ‘The Assembly of Women’, by Aristophanes, interpreted by the ‘Furor Bacchicus’ Group from the Faculty of Humanities at the Pablo de Olavide University.
In addition to this program, the Ministry of Culture and Sports, in collaboration with the Association of Greco-Latin Theater Festival Prósopon, will make available to the public the texts of the performed works, including educational guides for teachers and students through the archaeological site’s website. The event is complemented by other activities such as guided tours of the site, including some sessions in Latin, under the title of ‘Italicae Lvstratio Latine’, and educational workshops at the ‘Cotidiana Vitae’ center of the Santiponce Town Hall.
With this event, the Ministry aims to bring Greco-Latin culture closer to young people through student-formed companies. Thus, a better understanding of the origins of European civilization is provided, with a special emphasis on the current survival of its constitutive values. Additionally, this educational proposal is one of the strategies for promoting European values among youth included in the candidacy as a ‘Transnational Site of the European Heritage Label’, which Itálica aspires to jointly with Villa Adriana in Rome and the city of Athens.
All information about the XXVII European Youth Greco-Latin Theater Festival in Itálica is available on the website of the Archaeological Site of Itálica.